Opinion: Amid ICE surge in Columbus, fear is now part the job

ICE is ramping up in Columbus.

For immigrants, that sentence doesn’t arrive as information. It arrives in the body. A tightening. A pause. A quiet recalculation of how to move through the day.

Recently, I spoke with a restaurant owner I admire – someone I don’t speak with often but whose values I respect deeply. He reached out because he needed to talk to someone else who might understand. As an immigrant. As a restaurateur. As someone trying to keep people safe while holding together a business.

He wasn’t calling to talk about margins or menus. He was trying to figure out how to protect his staff.

Most of his employees are immigrants. Many of them still want to work. Showing up provides them with a routine, dignity, and a sense of normalcy in a moment when so much feels unstable. And yet, in recent days he’s wrestled with the idea of closing his doors for a few weeks just to give everyone space to breathe.

But independent restaurants don’t have that kind of margin. Closing, even temporarily, can mean not reopening at all. So instead, he’s doing what he can, day by day.

He drives his staff to and from work to reduce risk. He shows up with coffee and donuts, trying to keep the mood light. He orders extra food so people can take meals home. He makes sure everyone has a red card to remind them of their rights. To remind them to stay silent. To remind them that their accent might be used against them.

This is what care looks like right now.

For many small business owners, staff becomes family. You spend more waking hours together than with your own relatives. You celebrate births and milestones. You hold space for grief. You rely on one another.

When fear enters the picture, the questions get heavier. How do you put yourself first when other people depend on you? How do you protect your own family while also protecting the people who show up for you every day?

The strain doesn’t stop at staffing. Like many independent restaurants, this owner relies on food delivery – especially during these colder months when customers don’t want to leave their homes. He knows the drivers. He’s built relationships with them. Many of them are immigrants, too. A lot of those drivers have decided the risk isn’t worth it. They’ve stopped driving. So, he’s had to pause delivery altogether. Another hit. Another adjustment made not because of poor planning or bad business decisions but because of the way that fear has reshaped the landscape.

There are ways people can help, though. Visit your local restaurants and dine in when you can (there is strength in numbers.) If you order carryout, pick the food up yourself. Buy gift cards to help with immediate cash flow. Check on owners, managers, and staff members, because that human connection matters now more than ever. And perhaps most importantly, be sure to extend these restaurants a measure of grace, realizing owners and staff members are doing their best to navigate what can be an almost impossible situation.

All of this is happening in an industry already stretched thin. Since the pandemic, restaurants have struggled with slim margins, rising food and labor costs, and debt carried forward from tumultuous years that never really let up. There is no extra cushion here – only more weight. So, this becomes one more hit. One more instability. One more thing that independent restaurants are expected to quietly absorb.

What I didn’t expect was how much I needed that conversation. I know he called me for perspective. But until I spoke with someone who didn’t need convincing, and who understood me without explanation, I didn’t realize how long I had been holding my breath. I didn’t realize how long I had been tempering my emotions, questioning my reactions, telling myself not to overreact.

That shared understanding mattered. It reminded me that this fear isn’t imagined or isolated. It’s being carried quietly by countless people trying to do right by others while holding themselves together.

And that, right now, is what it can look like running an independent restaurant.